Category Archives: News

Cancer Care Tips, News

New Report: 50% of Cancer Deaths Are Preventable

image of used cigarettes in sand.
The use of cigarettes has been linked to lung cancer

Half of all cancer deaths are preventable, according to a new American Association for Cancer Research report. You may be able to cut your cancer risk dramatically by making three lifestyle changes:

  • Reduce sun exposure,
  • Quit smoking, and
  • Maintain a healthy weight.

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the U.S. with more than two million people diagnosed each year. One in five Americans will develop skin cancer. You can significantly decrease your skin cancer risk by wearing broad-spectrum sun screen that protects against both UVA and UVB rays whenever you are outdoors, even on cloudy days and in the winter.

Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in the U.S., responsible for a third of U.S. cancer fatalities. Twice as many people die from lung cancer as from prostate and breast cancer. And lung cancer doesn’t just kill smokers. Non-smokers who live with smokers or work in a smoke-filled environment are also at increased risk of lung cancer. While there is some concern that electronic cigarettes may contain cancer-causing agents, a New Zealand study found that e-cigarettes are as effective as nicotine patches in helping smokers quit.

Obesity is the elephant in the room when discussing cancer and lifestyle choices. Obesity is associated with a third of U.S. cancer deaths, but the public is only just beginning to see obesity as a cancer risk factor. Obesity can interfere with your body’s metabolic function, weakening your immune system’s ability to fight off cancer and other diseases. Maintaining a healthy weight through diet and exercise may play a significant role in reducing cancer risk.

Cancer Research, News

Researchers Find Unexpected Link Between Autism and Cancer

Mutated cancer or tumor genes.
Mutated cancer or tumor genes.

An unexpected link between autism and cancer has been discovered by researchers. While the cause of autism remains unknown in the majority of cases, mutated cancer or tumor genes appear to have caused the brain disorder in a small percentage of people. According to a New York Times review of the new findings:

  • 10% of children with mutations of the PTEN (P-10) gene have autism. PTEN has been linked to breast, thyroid, colon and other organ cancers.
  • 50% of children with the genetic disorder tuberous sclerosis have autism. Tuberous sclerosis has been linked to brain and kidney cancer and brain and organ tumors.

Researchers noted that while the risk is considerably higher than for the general population, not everyone with these genetic mutations will develop either autism or cancer. Yet for those with autism who do have one of these genetic mutations, the discovery opens the door to new avenues of research and potential discovery of a cure. In fact, a clinical trial is already underway to see if autistic children who carry the targeted genetic mutation will respond to a drug used to treat tumors that share that same genetic footprint.

Both cancer and autism involve unregulated cell growth and both genes being studied act to halt cell growth. Genetic manipulation of cell growth is proving to be a fertile field for cancer research and treatment. Issels integrated immunotherapy utilizes targeted cell therapies in our cancer vaccine program to target and manipulate the tumor microenvironment that triggers the progression or regression of cancer. For many of our patients, Issels cancer treatments have resulted in long-term cancer remission.

After Cancer, News

Do Cancer Screenings Result in Overtreatment?

 

Medical Testing Results Review
Medical Testing Results Review

In recommending that cancer be redefined to reflect new knowledge and that certain conditions no longer be branded as cancer (see our previous post), a National Cancer Institute advisory panel expressed concern that America’s defensive approach to medicine has lead to over-screening for cancer and that cancer screenings are too often resulting in unnecessary treatment.

The panel’s concern was twofold:

  1. Today’s cancer screenings use a level of technology capable of detecting  abnormalities at the cellular level. The problem is that the human body is full of abnormalities; however, not all abnormalities are cancerous nor will most become cancerous.
  2. Americans are so conditioned to think worst-case scenario when cancer is diagnosed that they are unwilling to take a “wait and see” approach. They insist on surgery or other radical treatments such as chemotherapy and  radiation that carry their own significant health risks. In fact, fear of cancer is causing some people to undergo surgery even when no cancer is evident, as was the case earlier this year when actress Angelina Jolie underwent a preventative double mastectomy after discovering that she carries a gene that increases breast cancer risk.

In making its recommendation, the advisory panel stated:

“The word ‘cancer’ often invokes the specter of an inexorably lethal process. However, cancers are heterogeneous and can follow multiple paths, not all of which progress to metastases and death.”

As noted on CNN Health, 10% of localized lung cancer tumors, 20% to 30% of localized breast cancer tumors and 60% of prostate cancer tumors discovered by screening will never harm their victims.

Next time: Differentiating between harmful and benign tumors

Cancer Research, News

Cancer Experts Recommend Updating Cancer Definitions

Getting News of Cancer
Getting News of Cancer

There is no more emotionally charged and frightening word than cancer. When spoken in a doctor’s office, patients immediately assume the worst and start counting their days. Most patients consider a cancer diagnosis a death sentence. When cancer screenings detect an abnormality they panic, subjecting their bodies to surgery, chemotherapy and radiation in a desperate bid to live. And even if they survive cancer, most live in constant fear that it will return.

A National Cancer Institute advisory panel sent shock waves coursing through the cancer community this week when scientists recommended that:

  1. The definition of cancer be redefined and updated to reflect modern scientific and medical findings. One of the problems with cancer diagnosis, Dr. Otis Brawley, the American Cancer Society’s chief medical officer, told CNN Health is that oncologists are still using cancer definitions developed in the 1850s. Back then, cancer typically spread through the body before it was diagnosed. Today, cancer screening methods allow oncologists to examine minute samples measured in millimeters. In evaluating such small tissue samples, natural abnormalities can be misdiagnosed as cancer.
  2. The diagnoses of certain illnesses be changed to eliminate cancer references or cancer language. In other words, some diseases currently defined as cancer would no longer be considered cancerous. As explained in a CBS News report, there are certain potentially pre-cancerous conditions that carry only a slight risk of becoming cancerous. Yet because they are defined as “cancer,” “carcinoma” or “neoplasia” patients panic and often undergo unnecessary surgery, chemotherapy or radiation, frequently suffering damaging side effects.

Next time: Do cancer screenings result in overtreatment

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, News

Cancer Treatment Revolution Could End Chemotherapy

New Cancer Treatment to Null and Void Chemotherapy
New Cancer Treatment to Null and Void Chemotherapy

A cancer treatment revolution could spell the end of chemotherapy and the horrific side effects it visits on cancer patients. As reported by Time magazine, two studies recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that a radically different type of anti-cancer treatment was able to achieve an astounding 83% survival rate for leukemia patients after only 2 years of treatment.

The success of the new cancer therapies could ring chemo’s death knell, an event that will not be mourned by cancer patients. Chemotherapy’s virulent side effects wreak a heavy toll on most cancer patients. Many consider the cure to be nearly as bad as the disease.

The new cancer treatments follow in the footsteps of imatinib, or Gleevec, the first mainstream cancer drug to deviate from chemotherapy’s drastic annihilation approach to cancer treatment. Following a kinder, gentler cancer treatment path, in 2001, imatinib reported similar survival rates for patients suffering from myeloid leukemia (CML) and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST).

“I think we are definitely moving farther and farther away from chemotherapy, and more toward molecularly targeted therapy,” Dr. Martin Tallman, chief of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s leukemia service, told Time.

Unlike chemotherapy which kills both good and bad cells, evolving targeted cancer therapies take aim only at the specific pathways tumor cells need to thrive. Surrounding healthy tissues are not affected which means fewer side effects and complications for cancer patients. Standard cancer therapies are gradually moving toward the type of individually-tailored, targeted cancer therapies that Issels Integrative Oncology Centers have been offering cancer patients for decades.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, News

Why Do Some People Get Cancer and Others Don’t?

Developing Cancer
Developing Cancer

Men have a 1 in 2 chance of developing some sort of cancer at sometime during their lifetime and a 1 in 4 chance of dying from cancer. For women, the risk of developing cancer is 1 in 3 and the risk of dying from cancer is 1 in 5, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute database.

Many factors, particularly age, sex and genetic inheritance, affect both your lifetime cancer risk and your risk of developing a specific type of cancer. But despite the risk, there are some people who do not get cancer even when a family history of cancer exists.

Why do some people get cancer while others don’t? That’s the new focus of an ongoing American Cancer Society study that was begun in 1950 and is now in its third generation. Three hundred thousand people between the ages of 30 and 65 are being enrolled in the latest phase of the study. Participants must be cancer-free when they join the study. After providing an initial blood sample and completing a comprehensive health survey, participants are sent follow-up surveys every two years.

The first generation study discovered the link between smoking and lung cancer. The second generation study begun in the 1980s linked obesity with increased cancer risk. The current study is exploring the effects of a sedentary lifestyle on cancer risk as well as the question of why some people get cancer while others do not.

The answer to that question may take decades to unravel. If you get cancer, Issels Integrative immunotherapy alternative cancer treatments and cancer vaccines may tip the survival odds in your favor.